Sutter Health and nurses union duel over over how many nurses crossed picket line during first day of strike

Representatives for Novato Community Hospital and the California Nurses Association Tuesday provided widely divergent assessments of nurse participation during the first day of a two-day strike.

"Nineteen were scheduled to work — we're so small — and 12 showed up," said Mary Strebig, a spokeswoman for Novato Community Hospital.

But Mike Brannan, a spokesman for the California Nurses Association, said, "There is no way that number is accurate. They've never put out accurate numbers after one of our strikes. We don't believe anything they say."Brannan provided no estimate of his own.

Janet Urman, one of the Novato Community nurses picketing in front of the hospital Tuesday, said, "I don't personally know of anybody who has crossed the picket lines."

Another picketing nurse, Mary Strange, said, "I think there were one or two."

Wendy Arthurs, an operating room nurse who has worked at Novato Community for 15 years, said she was picketing because she believes some of the contract changes Sutter is seeking would place patients at risk. For example, Arthurs said hospital managers want to be able to assign nurses who have worked a double, 16-hour shift to another shift after just a six hour rest.

Currently, nurses at Novato Community are guaranteed 10 hours off after working a double shift before being reassigned.

Strebig said replacement nurses were filling in for striking nurses at Novato Community, as planned Tuesday and no surgeries had been canceled.

"Everything is going very smoothly," Strebig said.

Novato Community is one of 10 Sutter Health hospitals where nurses are staging a two-day strike. The other hospitals are the Alta Bates Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro Hospital, Sutter Solano in Vallejo, and Sutter Delta in Antioch.

The strike is scheduled to end at 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day; but Novato Community plans to lock out any nurse who participates until 7 a.m. on Sunday. The hospital employs about 74 nurses and most work fewer than 40 hours a week.